I used to edit Innovation Management. My book, "The Elastic Enterprise", co-authored with Nick Vitalari and described as a must read for companies that want to succeed in the new era of business - looks at how stellar companies have gone beyond innovation to a new form of wealth creation. I speak on new innovation paradigms.
I started my writing career in broadcasting and then got involved in the EU's attempt to create an ARPA-type unit, where I managed downstream satellite application pilots, at just the time commercial satellite services entered the market. I also wrote policy, pre the Web, on broadband applications, 3G (before it was invented), and Wired Cities.
I have written for many major outlets like the Wall St Journal, Times, HBR, and GigaOm, as well as producing TV for the BBC, Channel 4 and RTE. I am a research fellow at the Center For Digital Transformation at UC Irvine, where I am also an advisory board member, advisory board member at Crowdsourcing.org and Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research.
Google.com/haydn

The reason is: jobs represent a lower and lower proportion of hardware production. And hardware represents less and less of the value-added in a product.There are profound implications in that statement.

Let me give you a few examples of where the jobs dilemma really lies. A couple of months ago Malcolm Frank of Cognizant told me his company had 100 recruiters out on the road in the U.S. but they had difficulties finding the people they needed: people with a mix of business and IT talent who could talk strategy to clients and prospects.

Here are two further examples that underline the fact that the jobs problem is partly a talent problem that no educational institution has a handle on.

The first interviewee is the CIO of a major media organization. The biggest problem he faces? He needs people who are capable of reskilling on a weekly basis, should Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Google make any changes to their platforms, or if a new social marketing product come onto the market, or if the company sees an opportunity for a new app to differentiate its offering.

Those people are very hard to find even though his company has an interesting brand — not quite Facebook or Google, but close.

The second comes from the auto industry where, my interviewee told me, the balance between software and hardware engineers on any given infotainment project is now 50 software engineers to one hardware engineer. The difference between before and after is huge. Hardware engineers used to dominate these projects. So hardware does not create jobs like it used to, nowhere near.

The jobs growth continues to be in software. And the competition for software talent is global. Every company I have interviewed so far has offshored software jobs, seeking to find the best talent, wherever it might be. As far as I can see nothing is being done at a policy level to address that drain.

It’s hard to disagree — with over $100 billion in the bank Apple could do more for America. But the reality of today’s economy is that the knowledge-intense roles that we’ve said for a decade would become critical, the ones often centering on software, are indeed critical.

The absence of global supply is holding companies back. And so too is the lack of experience in this fast changing environment. The necessary problem-solving skills are difficult to teach, and the experience is often impossible to acquire because so much is new.

But these are still solvable requirements: make the labor market more fluid, allow people to expose their skills development more publicly, teach people to package their business experience better, make people better developers of their own narrative, better managers of their core problem solving skills rather than their exact implementation skills, accept we are constantly in beta mode, and teach people, quickly, to function in conditions of unprecedented uncertainty. Tough though it might sound that would tee people up for jobs that are already out there and still being offshored.

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CrApple hasn’t MADE ANYTHING since 1989. They contract OUT Anything to do with ASSEMBLY and other MANUFACTURE the components their CONTRACTORS Assemble!! And CrApple will NOT be bring “Manufacturing back to the US”, they will hire a CONTRACTOR to ASSEMBLE components MOSTLY MADE IN ASIA at someone elses facility in the US! These are FACTS … YOU are a LIAR CrApple Troll spreading their PR Departments Spin.

CrApple has exceptionally big press with the consumer over labor abuses in China and that is ALL this is about. I will predict that less than 10% of what CrApple puts their name on as a Marketeer, will be ASSEMBLED in some contractors facility in the US. And they will find the cheapest lowest quality immigrants to do that assembly. Would anyone with half a brain buy that crap then? I doubt it.

my buddy’s sister-in-law makes $86/hr on the internet. She has been out of work for nine months but last month her paycheck was $14704 just working on the internet for a few hours. Go to this web site and read more,,, http://ace60.cℴm

Strikes me that bringing jobs back is a Feel-good story, good publicity. It does not help all those who lost their jobs when Apple closed down its plant in the US in 1992 — as described in the book The Betrayal of the American Dream. So clap your hands if you like.

Hi Haydn, what stood out for me was your comment that your job environment would change weekly. That sounds miserable to me. There is quite a bit more to life than what you are offering here. Im not trying to be difficult, just pointing out the obvious. Unless you are talking about becoming obscenely wealthy, why would anyone bother?

Well Bruce, my job changes very often, perhaps weekly. I have to learn about new topics and explore what new (to me) people are saying. It seems to be fundamental to this economy and I rather enjoy it I guess there are people out there who will embrace it and some that hang on to what they know. But I do think the future lies with those who can strike a balance between deepening and changing.

While I agree on the reskilling on a weekly basis, the premise appears to be misunderstood. Learning a new skill does not mean you forget the old one, or it is completely different than what you already do. Simply it just means you have to get better at what you do to keep up. Businesses are successful because they adapt, IE, employees are given access to new information and training relevant to their job. It seems to me continuing to grow and get better at your job requires a commitment to learning what is required. Unfortunately companies while in the process of trying to find the optimum way to produce the most efficient dollar are forgetting to bring along their people (Providing relevant training and access to new information).

In the end, at this point, I find it hard to have a grim outlook on any job that is brought back to the states whether it be one or 1000. Yes, apple sent out thousands of jobs in the past, and a lot of others followed suit. Maybe these companies, who are giants in business, present a precedent more than a solution by bringing a few back. We can not do anything about the past but we can change the future.

CEO/CIOs do not achieve their status without believing in developing the people around them as their duty. This is irrelevant however when that is lost only a few rungs down. By the time you walk up to a Genius Bar in an Apple store the employee is just as fast to jump on Google to fix your problem as opposed to applying an knowledge they were required to have. (This seems to have gotten a lot worse in recent years) All part of the phenomena of CEOs ignoring terrible leadership at the middle manager level. There is more to these companies than the execs, and their product is cheapened because they ignore the people who are actually the face of their company. I do not mean to pick on Apple, this exists in an increasing number of these companies that, “The CEO/CIOs see it as their duty to develop people.”

I do agree that those positions should carry some pressure, I do not always see it fair. Is it not the companies own fault when they fail? How many companies are demanding these people go through the same product development and leadership training that the execs went through years ago.

If execs are applying pressure based on the current climate without using some reason; I just hope we are not losing the good middle men as a result. You can not throw a fish in the sand and tell it to swim and expect results. It is going to take some excellent leadership and time before the economy climate shifts in favor of middle management. I hope CEO/CIOs are seeing to it that the right people with the right knowledge are in those positions somehow.